Tuesday, January 25, 2011

CENTRALIA CENSORED: N-word move forces Twain off shelves

COLUMBIA, 1/25/11 (Beat Byte) -- A
national publisher's plan to remove the word "nigger" from The Adventure's
of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain's masterpiece about dysfunctional race
relations in America, has had an odd pre-emptive effect in Centralia, Boone County's second
largest city.

To prevent novelty seekers from stealing the original,
Centralia's Public library will pull it from the shelves, director Patt Olsen
told the Centralia Fireside-Guard. "If
the publisher goes through with the censorship, then the library’s books might
be seen as collector’s items by some, curiosities by others, and become the
target of theft," she explained. Patrons can still check out Huck Finn, but
from behind the library counter, she said "until the issue has receded from the
public eye."

It seems like a strangely ironic move from a librarian,
and Olsen said she doesn't approve of the censorship move, wondering where it
would all stop.

"It is bad enough we have states changing text books," she
said, "but now we have publishers rewriting the classics?"